Story:This has been sent originally by a member of the Mumbai police force. Share with everybody you know, particularly your wife, sisters, daughters, nieces, mother, female friends and colleagues.

At a petrol pump, a man came over and offered his services as a painter to a lady filling petrol in her car and left his visiting card. She said nothing but accepted his card out of sheer kindness and got into the car. The man then got into a car driven by another person.As the lady left the service station, she saw the men following her out of the station at the same time. Almost immediately, she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her breath. She tried to open the window and realised that the odour was on her hand; the same hand with which she had received the card from the person at the service station.She then noticed the men were immediately behind her and she felt she needed to do something at that moment. She drove into the first driveway and began to honk her horn repeatedly to ask for help. The men drove away but the lady still felt pretty bad for several minutes after she could finally catch her breath. Apparently, there was a substance on the card that could have seriously injured her. This drug is called 'BURUNDANGA'. (Not known To People So Far but sufficient Information Is available in the Net) and it is used by people who wish to incapacitate a victim in order to steal from or take advantage of them. This drug is four times more dangerous than the date rape drug and is transferable on a simple card or paper.. So please take heed and make sure you don't accept cards when you are alone or from someone on the streets. This applies to those making house calls and slipping you a card when they offer their services.

PLEASE SEND THIS ALERT TO your Dear Ones... . . . . .

Hoax or Fact:

Mixture of hoax and facts.

Analysis:

Burundanga is indeed a real drug which is used in several crimes like robbing and sexual assault, especially in Columbia. The victims who are administered with this drug lose their senses completely and can be easily controlled by the criminals. The drugged victims are also reported to have committed serious crimes under its influence.

Burundanga is a drug which is commonly known as Scopolamine and also has many medical applications while used in minute doses. While it is useful in treating mental disorders, depression, memory problems and other common conditions like nausea and vomiting, an overdose of Burundanga drug can lead to drowsiness, dizziness, agitation, excitement, convulsions, hallucinations, coma and even death. Therefore, it is a fact that Burundanga is dangerous and can lead to unpredictable and serious effects on victims.

But the message in the story is a hoax, because Burundanga drug effect cannot work when a person simply comes in contact with it, like it is mentioned in the story. For it to have an impact on victim, it has to be administered through food or drink, or must be inhaled as a powder. Moreover, the drug is colorless, odourless, and tasteless, while the story says that the woman felt the odour on her hand. Therefore, the message stated in the story is a hoax.

This chain email actually started in the year 2008, which is spreading again on social networking platforms. Such hoax messages need not be shared, as it does no good to the people, but will only instill fear.

Something like similar happened

I have two incidents to tell, dont know what are the reasons but both are very true happened in my family and friends circle.

In one case, one of my friend's father who owns a big jewellery shop in tirupati was sitting at bill counter. Then two women came to him acted enquiring about gold and pasted kumkum on his forehead telling it to be holy. After that probably 5-10 mins later uncle realized(looks like he regained from unconsciousness) that there is no money in the counter. Later people who were working in shop said they saw uncle giving money to the two women from counter.

One another case similar to above happened in Bangalore temple with my friend and colleague, she was standing out at temple then one lady came and gave kumkum on forehead. Fortunately my friends husband was nearby and saw that she was about to give all the money and some gold ornaments which he interrupted and stopped by that time the lady ran away. In this case as well my friend didnt knew what she was doing.

I think both the cases have relation to the above drug or something else.